Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) today said that the non-coding DNA plays an important role in forming boundaries around the repeated sequences (DNA).
“The non-coding DNA which is considered as junk is not a waste material but in fact a jewel as it protects different cell types by creating boundaries around them, even though the genes are lying in a sequence close to each other”, CCMB Director Dr Ch Mohan Rao said in a press conference.
The research team was led by scientist Dr Rakesh Mishra and four other scientists.
“The results would one day help in personalised and tailor-made medicine, where GATA could act as a boundary element, saving the patient from an ailment such as cancer”, said Dr Rao.
GATA, a family of transcription factors, are a DNA sequence transcription factors.
“By removing these boundaries, our team found out that certain characters which were so far bound by these walls, have spread to other parts of the body like leg and wings of the fruit fly”, the researchers said.
At present, these experiments are conducted on fruit flies and transparent fish, Rao added.
PTI